Word: spectacularity
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...vigilance in policing shoddy maintenance practices led the Government agency to ground 61 commuter and air-taxi carriers for varying periods (some permanently) in 1986, as well as 60 the year before. In its most spectacular gesture, the FAA in March fined Eastern Air Lines $9.5 million for , 78,372 alleged safety and maintenance violations. Pan Am has been jolted by FAA fines of $2 million, while American was assessed $1.5 million...
...simplicity. In Pigs from A to Z (Houghton Mifflin; $15.95), Arthur Geisert's suite of copper etchings follows siblings with curly tails and mischievous minds as they construct a wolfproof tree house by the letters. En route, the illustrator-author ingeniously employs words that describe his book (eerie, ideal, spectacular) and performs the hardest task in children's literature: enlightening with surprises...
Gorbachev's most spectacular foreign policy display came in October at Reykjavik during the hastily called summit, where he played the superpower game like a grand master. A confident but ill-prepared President Reagan was lured into a no-win confrontation over the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative. By offering the near total elimination of nuclear weapons in exchange for restricting SDI to the laboratory, Gorbachev momentarily captured the propaganda high ground. Reagan attempted to outbid him by promising to do away with all nuclear weapons, but the President was nonetheless pictured as the advocate of military escalation while Gorbachev came...
...washing over the White House. Certainly it is unwise to write off an army that has repeatedly shown staying power, if not fighting prowess. Indeed, in Nicaragua, there is talk that Honduras' recent attacks were a diversionary tactic to allow the contras to infiltrate Nicaragua in time for a spectacular holiday attack. In Honduras, however, the word is that the contras' fireworks will not begin until the end of January. Whenever the contras finally do resume their war, the pyrotechnics will have to be bright, indeed, if the rebels hope to coax more funds from a reluctant U.S. Congress...
Just over a minute later, the shuttle was consumed in a spectacular fireball...